If my beloved New York Mets can’t win the World Series then I’m glad my dads beloved Giants won. My father came to America from Ireland in 1929 and landed with four of his brothers in Salem MA to live with their aunt. In 1930 my dad and one brother took off for NYC and never went back. He and my uncle wanted to see Babe Ruth play as they heard all these stories about the great baseball slugger. So off to Yankee Stadium they go but one problem, the Yankees were on the road. A cop walking the beat around the ball park told them if they wanted to see a baseball game today go over the bridge into Manhattan as the Giants were playing that day.

The legend as my father told me time and time again was ,when they got to the Polo Grounds, John McGraw was barking orders to his players. My dad asked who he was and a guy next to him said “That’s McGraw he runs this team”. With that my father looked at my uncle and said, “They let an Irishman run a baseball team”? They were both flabbergasted. Remember this was back in the day of businesses putting up signs “NO IRSH NEED APPLY and “ALL DOGS AND IRSH KEEP OFF THE GRASS” so to see a man who traced his ancestry back to the Motherland in a position of authority was extraordinary.

So from that day on, my father’ baseball devotion was to the NY Giants and to Little Napoleon. My dad would tell me it was heartbreaking when the Giants moved West (I’d tell him, you couldn’t have been that broken up since I was born in 1958 eighteen years after my sister) but then in 1962 the Mets were born and he had another team to root for.

But I always remember as a kid, when the Giants and Dodgers came to Shea, it seem like it was always a weekend series, and we always went to the games when the Giants came to town. Even though his new allegiance was to the Mets, my dad always remembered the Giants were his first baseball love. I’m sure he would have loved to see this years Giants celebrate wining the World Series, not as much as if it were the Mets but I know he would light up a cigar and say “At least it’s not those god damn Yankees”

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